The Balcony

‘I too saw that it was good to separate light from darkness. The bible said that somewhere, I think it was the part where God created everything, right? Even as a child I could see that—hey, could you pass me one of them smokes?’ Lily stopped talking at us long enough to reach across the grubby card table to snatch the pack of cigarettes. ‘Augh, menthols? You gotta be kidding me. No one smokes these anymore, except truck drivers!’ She held the lighter up to her face and inhaled deeply as she nonetheless lit the offending cigarette and exhaled a large cumulus cloud of smoke. It hung over her head like a big, poufy, cancerous hat. It seemed to provide her with relief instantly, just ignore the fact that the rest of us poor sots had to suck it up and deal.

‘Where was I? Oh—so, kids like order, right? During the day you go out and you play and run around like crazy. Everything is separated based on night and day, like in categories. You’ve got your daytime clothes and your nighttime clothes. You’ve got breakfast versus dinner. Black, white, good and evil? Right?’

Lilly stopped for a second to nibble nervously on her thumb. I swear, if chatter wasn’t streaming out of her mouth in torrents like a busted dam then she was maniacally inserting things into her mouth. Cigarettes, fingers, Diet Cokes, and gum chewing reminiscent of a cow, anything her nervous little fingers could find. ‘Some animals are up during the day and others are asleep, like the owl. Although this guy I met, on the train? He said that some owls are up during the day too, its not just nocturnal. What was the word he used? Something like diurnal. So that kinda blows my whole point but you get what I’m saying, right?’

It was moments like these that I got impatient—but that’s not permissible. I’m here to listen. Everyone needed their time to get their stories out. If I showed the slightest bit of agitation with her she would retreat and this one was a tough one to coax back out. I felt for her, I really did. She was disarmingly pretty in a fragile kind of way, but I’m not supposed to be paying attention to those sorts of things. It is all about her finding her voice, telling her story—I should not acknowledge that her looks make me feel as though I want to take care of her.

‘So anyways, I was like any other kid…I followed the laws of nature and would know better than many the work that was done mightily by way of darkness, I tell you.’ Her eyes rolled as if she were gossiping about someone’s hemlines being too short—although I doubt she would find anything too short to wear. ‘So he woke me up in the dark and said that he had something special to show me. What was happening? It was so hot and I remember being sweaty and my hair sticking to my face as I tried to shake off the sleep. What was going on? Why is my father waking me up in the middle of the night?’

‘My bed was positioned alongside the far wall, against the window and balcony that faced out onto Broadway. I think the window was a little open cause it was really hot, summertime. My father reached over the bed and forced open the window sash all the way but it was kind of sticky so he had to struggle to force it open. I hobbled across the twin bed to him, caught and twisted up in my thin Holly Hobby cotton nightgown. Ha! Holly Hobby! Can you imagine?’ More eye-rolling. ‘I leaned into him and holding on to him, I leaned out the window with him.’

‘See, I wasn’t allowed out on the balcony, my mother’s words were echoing over and over in my brain. Why were we leaning out the window and perched on a balcony that mommy says not to go on, Hello? Mommy says it’s not safe. It’s not safe. But my father had a firm grasp on me with his arm around me and I felt safer as I crouched with him out on to the ledge.’

‘We were high up and I was exhilarated, it was so exciting! There was, like, no breeze to be had and I remember thinking my father smelled funny. Boozy, you know? I was familiar with the boozy smell. He said, Look around, Lilly. What do you see?’

‘I looked around, holding tighter. I scanned Broadway for its usual hubbub and activity but I couldn’t see anything, like, nothing. I couldn’t hear anything either. As far as I could see there was an absence of light, only darkness for as far as I could see. We inched out farther along the edge of the balcony that my mother said was ‘just ornamentation,’ its not meant to be walked on, but we went out anyway and looked all around, holding our breath. You know what? I think the city was holding it’s breath too.’

‘It was so hot and still and thrilling to be up when I knew I was not supposed to be and on the balcony!’ Lilly took the last drag from the cigarette, now burnt down to a little nub tucked between yellowish nicotine-stained fingers. There was a slight smile playing on her mouth but she never looked up at us, her chin was tucked firmly into her chest. ‘He told me about the blackout, how there was no electricity in the whole city and there wasn’t any lights on anywhere. He said that he had wanted to wake me up to see this because something like this was probably never going to happen again. I asked if the lights were ever going to come back on again, I was suddenly really scared. I didn’t want to be outside my window any longer in a place my mother felt was not safe, in my nightgown and my father smelling the way he did. Where was my mother? I guess I shoulda knew. I shoulda just jumped, right?’

—Darjeeling